


Untitled (Two Lines Challenge 2005)

by strawberryelfsp (berreh)



Category: Lost
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Family Drama, Gen, Kind of a downer, Not Beta Read, Two Lines Challenge, previously unposted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 01:16:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8124937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berreh/pseuds/strawberryelfsp
Summary: Liam's the family fuck-up, Charlie's the serious musician. Sometimes things change.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2005 Two-Lines Challenge, but never revised, beta'd, or posted anywhere. It just kind of got abandoned. Since I'm archiving my stuff, I decided to finally put it out into the world for old times' sake. This was written during Season 1 of Lost.

_in the back of your car / i feel like i have traveled nowhere_  
—Tegan  & Sara, ‘Terrible Storm’

 

[Manchester]

 

"Bloody hell, Liam, you bought a car?"

Liam twirled the key around his finger, leaning against a sparkling window.

"We'll don't just stand there, tell me what you think of it."

Charlie scratched his nose. "It's... nice. It's really nice."

"Nice?" Liam knocked on the bright red paint. "Nice?" He sprawled on his back across the bonnet. "Makes your dick hard just looking at it, doesn't it?"

"Liam, please." Charlie walked closer to the BMW. It was gorgeous, bright and clean as a virgin, cherry-red in the morning sun.

"How much did you pay for this?"

"Thirty-five thousand quid. Cash Money." Liam grinned at Charlie's expression. "Our record just went platinum, man. We’re fuckin rock stars -- it's time we looked part, innit?"

"I thought we agreed to use that money to buy new equipment. Equipment, Liam. Studio time. You promised."

He waited for Liam's eyes to crinkle in irritation. Instead, his brother's grin only widened.

"Look in the backseat."

The beemer had polished chrome door handles and dark-tinted windows; in the back, lying across velvet upholstery, lay a black guitar case. 

"For you, baby brother," Liam said.

It was an Ovation, acoustic, mahogany brown and strung with fresh D'Addarios. Charlie pulled it from gingerly from the case and held it in his arms. It had already been tuned; a clear, brilliant D chord sang beneath his fingers.

"It's brilliant, Liam."

"Right, you can stroke off with it later. I'm taking you for a drive. Just this once, practice can wait." Liam's eyes sparkled, baby blue. He pulled his sunglasses down across them. "You in?"

Charlie looked up and grinned. "I'm in." 

 

[Berlin]

 

"Look, mate, I can't hold the room much longer. Maybe we can reschedule a-"

"We're not rescheduling shit," said Sinjin. "We are the number one band on the Billboard 200 and we paid you twice the normal fee. They can bloody well wait."

The manager turned to the piano, rubbing the back of his neck. "Charlie..."

Charlie looked up from the notes he'd been writing. He sat on the piano bench, one foot on an amp, guitar balanced on his knee. A notebook filled with sheet music spread across the piano, weighed down by a bottle of beer. He spoke around the pen in his mouth.

"He'll be here." 

As if on cue, the studio door opened and in stumbled Liam Pace, flanked by two bodyguards and the groupie who'd been following them since Copenhagen. In one hand he held a bottle of champagne; and the other he twirled his car keys by a fake white rabbit's foot.

"I have arrived," he announced. "Let the musical mastery commence."

Sinjin and Patrick laughed. "Get in here, you crazy fucker,” called Patrick. "We've been waiting on your worthless arse for two hours. I think you like having your picture snapped in that fucking car more than you like your poor neglected band mates.”

Liam laughed and flipped them off. He whispered something into the girl's ear; she giggled and bit his earlobe, then headed into the sound booth with the bodyguards. The recording manager shook his head and picked up his headphones.

"Right, gentlemen, I assume you're ready to begin now? Or perhaps you would like to spend another ten thousand Euros listening to Charlie tune his guitar?"

"Put that shit down, Charlie," Sinjin said. "Get back to your bass where you belong. You gotta do that solo on track four, mate. It fucking rocks.”

Liam sat down next to Charlie. He plunked his bottle of champagne on the piano; Charlie snatched up his notebook before the drops smeared the ink.

"You're late, Liam."

"I needed to pick up some refreshments. Gave you plenty of time to work on your secret masterpiece, eh? For when you go off and leave all us bums behind?"

Charlie smirked, but he did not meet Liam's eyes. The notebook slid into his rucksack. _Solo project 3A_ , read the Sharpie scribbled across the cover.

"We ready?"

Liam grabbed him around the shoulder and ruffled his hair, then shoved him away and stood on mostly steady feet.

"Ready and waiting, baby brother," he said.

 

[Paris]

 

Charlie stared into the darkness. Raindrops slithered down tinted glass. He followed them with his eyes, heavy, dilated, head turned back on the velvet. Cool now, unfocused, sliding trails of color and sound and beauty. The rain sounded different on the glass, on the roof, on the pavement outside. It was music, he thought, and he strained to hear the patterns in the color and darkness. His left hand rubbed against the texture; his right hand lay on his belly above the folds of his rucked-up T-shirt. The red velvet crushed soft beneath the back of his neck. It bore him up, cradling him, surrounding his sprawled body and spread knees, keeping him from sliding down through the floor and through the color and through the water and away along the river flowing all around him, outside the car and inside his veins.

This was some really good shit, man.

From far away he heard the soft gravel of Liam's voice, a low laugh from the front seat and a sigh from the girl who straddled him there. She said something else, but it was too far away, too obscured by the rain and the music from the CD changer, the music, soaking into his skin. He lifted his head and the world spun; his head fell back and he heard the voice again.

"You feelin it, Charlie?” Liam said. “Good, isn't it?" Another moan from the girl, and Liam's slow breath. "Yeah, look at him. Look how he's feelin it.”

Charlie's knees spread wider; his jeans gaped and cool air drifted across his skin as the blond head bobbing between his thighs stopped and lifted.

"He'll feel it, all right," said a vaguely familiar voice. "You leave that to me."

Charlie's mouth opened; the raindrops fragmented and the music swelled and grew indistinct as his eyelids fluttered and then closed.

 

[London]

 

"I'm sorry, sir, but there is really nothing I can do."

Charlie took off his sunglasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The sun stabbed into the glass-filled lobby, and he put the sunglasses back on quickly. He was tired, and his fingers shook, but he put as much charm as he could into his voice and gave the pale woman a smile.

"I understand you have to do your job. Really, I do. I respect that. But I really, really, could use your help here, right? There must be some sort of arrangement we can come to." 

The woman behind the desk did not return his smile. “I am well aware of who you are, Mr. Pace,” she said, all posh southern chill. “And I am well aware of who your brother is. But the fact of the matter remains that your brother was arrested with two grams of heroin and two grams of cocaine in his possession. I am certain he will buy his way out in a day or two, but until that time his vehicle will remain in police custody. Those are the rules, Mr. Pace. For pop stars as well as everyone else.”

Charlie’s jaw clenched. _I'll show you a fucking pop, you tight-arsed slag._ She was right, of course - their lawyer would have Liam out and the charges dropped before the papers ever got wind of any of it. It wasn't his brother Charlie was worried about.

"Look," he said, as calm as possible. "I have... items in that car I need to get back. I don't want the car, you can keep the bloody car - just let me get my things out of there and I'll be gone." He clasped his hands together on the desktop to stop their shaking.

She saw what he was doing, and he watched her face change. She pressed her lips together into something wan and polite, drew back from him and sat stiffly in her chair. If she had been a man, he would have punched her in the face. 

"All items have already been removed from the vehicle. Personal property is put into a locker for retrieval. There was a booklet of CDs, several packets of cigarettes, and an acoustic guitar in a black case. You are welcome to claim anything that is yours. I'll gladly give you the key." She smiled at him, a smear of painted lips. "You _were_ referring to your guitar, weren't you, Mr. Pace?"

He opened his mouth, but the cop at the next desk over was watching them. He flattened his hands on the desk and pushed his chair back with a jarring shriek in the glass-enclosed lobby. 

"Just gimme the fuckin key."

 

[Sydney]

 

"I'm staying in Australia, Charlie."

He had been lighting a cigarette – he looked up and his lighter closed with a loud clink. "What?"

Liam picked at the label of his bottle. "When the band goes back to Manchester at the end of the tour. I'm staying here."

Charlie finished lighting his smoke. "Don't be daft."

"There's not gonna be a third album, Charlie," Liam said quietly. "You know it as well as I do. I'm a father now; I've got to think about my future. I want to raise Megan in Australia, give her more than she's had so far." At the expression on Charlie's face he stopped, shook his head. "Look, it's just a hiatus, right? Recharge our batteries? You could use some time to work on your solo album."

"Give me a fucking break." Charlie took a single drag and then stabbed out the fag in disgust. "I can't believe you want to fucking quit on me just because your old lady's hassling you."

"I'm not quitting, Charlie. I just need some time. I know you don't understand, but right now I just really need to be there for the baby."

"Christ." Charlie felt around his pockets for his second pack of smokes; not finding them, he swore and swilled down the rest his beer. "What about your stuff?"

"I'm giving it to the band. Sinjin will look after it till I get back. Mum’s gonna send the rest of my things over as soon as I find a place. I'll pay my share of the studio time."

Charlie snorted. "Yeah? How?"

Liam took a swallow of his soft drink. "I'm going to sell my car."

"You're what?"

"I don't need it anymore. I can get enough for it for a down payment on a decent place. I should've gotten rid of it years ago anyway."

They sat in silence. The jukebox blared by the pub stools, some random, inane pop-tart shit. Charlie ran his thumb around the top of his beer bottle. His rings clinked against the brown glass. 

"Let me have it."

Liam looked at him for a long moment. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

Charlie's eyes narrowed. "I see." His head was pounding - the smell of food in this place was making him sick. He tossed a few notes onto the table and reached for his jacket. "I have to get back."

"Charlie, please, don't be angry."

"No, mate, it's fine, I understand. Gotta take care of the important things." Charlie shrugged. "A break might be good, get my solo album done, get us a new label and a better deal for the next tour."

Liam didn't answer. Charlie jerked his jacket on and pulled his sunglasses from his hair. He picked up his bag and guitar case. His grip on the handle shook. 

"Charlie, don't. I can give you a ride to my house; you don't have to carry your stuff across town."

Charlie's mouth was going dry. Liam's house was too far away. He couldn't wait that long. "Can you just take me back to my hotel?"

After a moment, Liam smiled sadly. The lines around his blue eyes deepened. "Of course I can, baby brother."

In the back of the BMW Charlie watched the setting sun flicker between the buildings. The glass was warm against his palm. His head throbbed and his pulse tripped; he turned his head from the glare and looked down at the seat beside him. His bag dangled over the floorboard; his guitar case knocked against his knees. Charlie drew his fingers across red velvet, soft and shifting beneath his skin. Liam was humming to himself as he drove; Charlie could only see the side of one ear and the back of the seat between them. He couldn't tell if the radio was on, or what song it might be playing. He couldn't hear the words Liam sang. Charlie opened his guitar case and pulled the Ovation into his lap. The lyrachord was smooth and solid against his knees. His fingers stilled when they touched the strings. He played a D and closed his eyes. It sounded like rain and home.


End file.
